Photos: Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah

Updated 6:42 PM ET, Mon September 17, 2012

Photos: Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah20 photos

Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Orthodox Jews pray as they perform Tashlich, or the casting off, at the Paris Square fountain in central Jerusalem on Monday, September 17. On the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, it is customary to throw pieces of bread or stones into a large, natural body of flowing water to cast away the sins of the past year.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Jews gather at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea in Ashdod, Israel, on Monday to recite the Tashlich prayer.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Israeli Jews recite the Tashlich prayer near a water source in the Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Monday.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Randy Weiner, 8, sounds the shofar during services on the first night of Rosh Hashanah at Temple Beth Shalom in Hudson, Ohio, on Sunday, September 16. The shofar, or ram's horn, is sounded at the start of the Jewish holy days and will be sounded again at the close at Yom Kippur.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Thousands of religious Jews participate in the Slichot, or forgiveness, prayer at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in the old city of Jerusalem on Sunday, the eve of the Jewish New Year. According to the Jewish calendar, the world has existed for 5,772 years.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man blows a shofar, a ram's horn, as religious Jews participate in the Slichot prayer at the Western Wall on Sunday.

Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Men wearing traditional Jewish headwear, kippahs, take part in a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday, September 15. The kippah walk, spurred from an online initiative, was aimed against anti-Semitism and took place on Rosh Hashanah.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Joshua, left, and Levin wear traditional play with a stuffed animals during a demonstration called the kippah walk in Berlin on Saturday.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – A Jewish worshipper blows the traditional shofar, made from an antelope's horn, near the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday, September 14.

Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Avraham Ribak poses with a ram's skull at his shofar factory in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Friday. The shofar is used mainly on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is blown in synagogues to mark the end of the fast at Yom Kippur and at four particular occasions in the prayers on Rosh Hashanah.

Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – A Jewish Orthodox man blows a shofar while hundreds of Jews attend Selichot prayers, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Israel, early Wednesday, September 12. According to the local media, this specific prayer is dedicated to ask for God's protection from the possibility of Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – Workers remove notes from the cracks of the Western Wall, on Monday, September 9, to make room for more paper notes that Jews believe are notes to God.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – A worker removes notes from the cracks of the Western Wall on Monday.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – A girl sits on a stack of plastic chairs as her father reads from a prayer book and faces the Western Wall on the night of Saturday, September 8. Many Jews recited prayers for the beginning of a new week, which starts as Shabbat ends on sundown on Saturdays.

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Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah – A young Jewish boy holds a prayer book as he follows his father to his left and others in prayer at the Western Wall.